CHAPTER VI.

GOVERNMENT OF THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.

1822-1827.

POSITION OF M. DE VILLELE ON ASSUMING POWER.--HE FINDS HIMSELF

ENGAGED WITH THE LEFT AND THE CONSPIRACIES.--CHARACTER OF THE

CONSPIRACIES.--ESTIMATE OF THEIR MOTIVES.--THEIR CONNECTION WITH

SOME OF THE LEADERS OF THE PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION.--M. DE LA

FAYETTE.--M. MANUEL.--M. D'ARGENSON.--THEIR ATTITUDE IN THE CHAMBER

OF DEPUTIES.--FAILURE OF THE CONSPIRACIES, AND CAUSES

THEREOF.--M. DE VILLELE ENGAGED WITH HIS RIVALS WITHIN AND BY THE

SIDE OF THE CABINET.--THE DUKE DE MONTMORENCY.--M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND

AMBASSADOR AT LONDON.--CONGRESS OF VERONA.--M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND

BECOMES MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.--SPANISH WAR.--EXAMINATION OF

ITS CAUSES AND RESULTS.--RUPTURE BETWEEN M. DE VILLELE AND

M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND.--FALL OF M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND.--M. DE VILLELE

ENGAGED WITH AN OPPOSITION SPRINGING FROM THE RIGHT-HAND

PARTY.--THE "JOURNAL DES DEBATS" AND THE MESSRS.

BERTIN.--M. DE VILLELE FALLS UNDER THE YOKE OF THE PARLIAMENTARY

MAJORITY.--ATTITUDE AND INFLUENCE OF THE ULTRA-CATHOLIC

PARTY.--ESTIMATE OF THEIR CONDUCT.--ATTACKS TO WHICH THEY ARE

EXPOSED.--M. DE MONTLOSIER.--M. BERANGER.--ACUTENESS OF

M. DE VILLELE.--HIS DECLINE.--HIS ENEMIES AT THE COURT.--REVIEW AND

DISBANDING OF THE NATIONAL GUARD OF PARIS.--ANXIETY OF

CHARLES X.--DISSOLUTION OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.--THE ELECTIONS

ARE HOSTILE TO M. DE VILLELE.--HE RETIRES.--SPEECH OF THE

DAUPHINISTS TO CHARLES X.

I now change position and point of view. It was no longer as an actor

within, but as a spectator without, that I watched the right-hand party,

and am enabled to record my impressions,--a spectator in opposition,

who has acquired light, and learned to form a correct judgment, from

time.

In December 1821, M. de Villele attained power by the natural highroad.

He reached his post through the qualities he had displayed and the

importance he had acquired in the Chambers, and at the head of his

party, which he brought in with himself. After a struggle of five years,

he accomplished the object prematurely conceived by M. de Vitrolles in

1815,--that the leader of the parliamentary majority should become the

head of the Government. Events are marked by unforeseen contradictions.

The Charter conducted to office the very individual who, before its

promulgation, had been its earliest opponent.

Amongst the noted men of our time, it is a distinctive feature in the

career of M. de Villele, that he became minister as a partisan, and

retained that character in his official position, while at the same time

endeavouring to establish, amongst his supporters, general principles of

government in preference to the spirit of party. This moderator of the

right was ever strictly faithful to the interests of that side. Very

often unacquainted with the ideas, passions, and designs of his party,

he opposed them indirectly and without positive disavowal, resolved

never to desert his friends, even though he might be unable to control

their course. Not from any general and systematic conviction, but from a

sound practical instinct, he readily perceived the necessity of a strong

attachment from the leader to his army, to secure a reciprocal feeling

from the army to its chief. He paid dearly for this pertinacity; for it

justly condemned him to bear the weight of errors which, had he been

unfettered, he would never in all probability have committed; but

through this sacrifice he held power for six years, and saved his party,

during that period, from the extreme mistakes which, after his

secession, led rapidly to their ruin. As minister of a constitutional

monarchy, M. de Villele has furnished France with one of the first

examples of that fixity of political ties which, in spite of many

inconveniences and objections, is essential to the great and salutary

effects of representative government.

When M. de Villele was called on to form a Cabinet, he found the country

and the Government under the influence of a violent excitement. There

were not alone storms in the Chamber and tumults in the streets; secret

societies, plots, insurrections, and a strong effort to overthrow

established order, fermented and burst forth in every quarter,--in the

departments of the east, west, and south, at Befort, Colmar, Toulon,

Saumur, Nantes, La Rochelle, and even at Paris itself, under the very

eyes of the Ministers, in the army as well as in the civil professions,

in the royal guards as in the regiments of the line. In less than three

years, eight serious conspiracies attacked and endangered the

Restoration.

Today, after the lapse of more than thirty years, after so many events

of greater importance, when an honest and rational man asks himself what

motives could have excited such fierce anger and rash enterprises, he

can find none either sufficient or legitimate. Neither the acts of power

nor the probabilities of the future had so wounded or threatened the

rights and interests of the country as to justify these attempts at

utter subversion. The electoral system had been artfully changed; power

had passed into the hands of an irritating and suspected party; but the

great institutions were still intact; public liberty, though disputed,

still displayed itself vigorously; legal order had received no serious

blow; the country prospered and regularly advanced in strength. The new

society was disturbed, but not disarmed; it was in a condition to wait

and defend itself. There were just grounds for an animated and public

opposition, but none for conspiracy or revolution.

Nations that aspire to be free incur a prominent danger,--the danger of

deceiving themselves on the question of tyranny. They readily apply that

name to any system of government that displeases or alarms them, or

refuses to grant all that they desire. Frivolous caprices, which entail

their own punishment! Power must have inflicted on a country many

violations of right, with repeated acts of injustice and oppression

bitter and prolonged, before revolution can be justified by reason, or

crowned with triumph in the face of its inherent faults. When such

causes are wanting to revolutionary attempts, they either fail miserably

or bring with them the reaction which involves their own punishment.

But from 1820 to 1823 the conspirators never dreamed of asking

themselves if their enterprises were legitimate; they entertained no

doubt on the subject. Very different although simultaneous passions,

past alarms and prospective temptations, influenced their minds and

conduct. The hatreds and apprehensions that attached themselves to the

words emigration, feudal system, old form of government, aristocracy,

and counter-revolution, belonged to bygone times; but these fears and

antipathies were in many hearts as intense and vivid as if they were

entertained towards existing and powerful enemies. Against these

phantoms, which the folly of the extreme right had conjured up, without

the power of giving them substantial vitality, war in any shape was

considered allowable, urgent, and patriotic. It was believed that

liberty could best be served and saved by rekindling against the

Restoration all the slumbering revolutionary fires. The conspirators

flattered themselves that they could at the same time prepare a fresh

revolution, which should put an end, not only to the restored monarchy,

but to monarchy altogether, and by the re-establishment of the Republic

lead to the absolute triumph of popular rights and interests. To the

greater part of these young enthusiasts, descended from families who had

been engaged in the old cause of the first Revolution, dreams of the

future united with traditions of the domestic hearth; while maintaining

the struggles of their fathers, they indulged their own Utopian

chimeras.

Those who conspired from revolutionary hatred or republican hope, were

joined by others with more clearly defined but not less impassioned

views. I have elsewhere said, in speaking of Washington, "It is the

privilege, often corruptive, of great men, to inspire attachment and

devotion without the power of reciprocating these feelings." No one ever

enjoyed this privilege more than the Emperor Napoleon. He was dying at

this very moment upon the rock of St. Helena; he could no longer do

anything for his partisans; and he found, amongst the people as well as

in the army, hearts and arms ready to do all and risk all for his

name,--a generous infatuation for which I am at a loss to decide whether

human nature should be praised or pitied.

All these passions and combinations would in all probability have

remained futile and unnoticed, had they not found exponents and chiefs

in the highest political circles and in the bosom of the great bodies of

the State. The popular masses are never sufficient for themselves; their

desires and designs must be represented by visible and important

leaders, who march at their head and accept the responsibility of the

means and end. The conspirators of from 1820 to 1823 knew this well; and

upon the most widely separated points, at Befort as at Saumur, and at

each fresh enterprise, they declared that they would not act unless

well-known political leaders and Deputies of reputation were associated

with them. Everybody knows, at the present day, that the co-operation

they required was not withheld.

In the Chamber of Deputies, the opposition to the Government of the

Right was comprised of three sections united against it, but differing

materially in their views and in their means of hostility. I shall only

name the principal members of this confederacy, and who have themselves

clearly defined their respective positions. M. de La Fayette and

M. Manuel acknowledged and directed the conspiracies. Without ignoring

them, General Foy, M. Benjamin Constant, and M. Casimir Perrier,

disapproved of their proceedings and declined association.

M. Royer-Collard and his friends were absolutely unacquainted with them,

and stood entirely aloof.

When my thoughts revert to M. de La Fayette, I am saddened by

affectionate regret. I never knew a character more uniformly sincere,

generous, and kind, or more ready to risk everything for his pledged

faith and cause; his benevolence, although rather indiscriminate in

particular cases, was not the less true and expanded towards humanity in

general. His courage and devotedness were natural and earnest, serious

under an exterior sometimes light, and as genuine as they were

spontaneous. Throughout his life he maintained consistency in sentiments

and ideas; and he had his days of vigorous resolution, which would have

reflected honour on the truest friend of order and resistance to

anarchy. In 1791, he opened fire, in the Champ de Mars, on the revolt

set up in the name of the people; in 1792, he came in person to demand,

on behalf of his army, the suppression of the Jacobins; and he held

himself apart and independent under the Empire. But, taking all points

into account, he failed in political judgment, in discernment, in a just

estimate of circumstances and men; and he had a yielding towards his

natural bent, a want of foresight as to the probable results of his

actions, with a constant but indistinct yearning after popular favour,

which led him on much further than he intended, and subjected him to the

influence of men of a very inferior order, directly against his moral

nature and political situation. At the first moment, in 1814, he seemed

to be well disposed towards the Restoration; but the tendencies of

power, and the persevering rancour of the Royalists, soon threw him back

into the ranks of opposition. At the close of the Hundred Days, his

hostility to the House of Bourbon became declared and active; a

republican in soul, without being sufficiently strong or daring to

proclaim the Republic, he opposed as obstinately as vainly the return of

royalty; and before the Chamber of 1815, excited but not dismayed, he

pledged himself, while the Restoration lasted, to enter and never to

desert the ranks of its most inveterate enemies. From 1820 to 1823 he

was, not the ostensible head, but the instrument and ornament, of every

secret society, of every plot and project of revolution; even of those

the results of which he would inevitably have denounced and resisted,

had they been crowned with success.

No two people could less resemble each other than M. Manuel and M. de La

Fayette. While one was open, improvident, and rash in his hostility, the

other was in an equal degree reserved, calculating, and prudent even in

his violence, although in real character bold and determined. M. de La

Fayette was not exactly a high and mighty lord,--that expression does

not apply to him,--but a noble gentleman, liberal and popular, not

naturally a revolutionist, but one who by enthusiasm or example might be

led and would himself lead to repeated revolutions. M. Manuel was the

obedient child and able defender of the past revolution, capable of

joining Government for its interest--a liberal Government, if animated

with revolutionary objects, an absolute Government if unlimited power

should be necessary to their supremacy,--but determined to uphold

revolution in every case and at any price. His mind was limited and

uncultivated, and, either in his general life or in parliamentary

debate, without any impress of great political views, or of sympathetic

or lofty emotions of the soul, beyond the firmness of his attitude and

the lucid strength of his language. Although no advocate, and a little

provincial in his style, he spoke and acted as a man of party, calmly

persevering and resolved, immovable in the old revolutionary arena, and

never disposed to leave it either to become a convert to new measures or

to adopt new views. The Restoration, in his opinion, was in fact the old

system and the counter-revolution. After having confronted it in the

Chambers with all the opposition which that theatre permitted, he

encouraged, without, every plot and effort of subversion; less ready

than M. de La Fayette to place himself at their head, less confident in

their success, but still determined to keep alive by these means hatred

and war against the Restoration, watching at the same time for a

favourable opportunity of launching a decisive blow.

M. d'Argenson had less weight with the party than either of his

colleagues, although perhaps the most impassioned of the three. He was a

sincere and melancholy visionary, convinced that all social evils spring

from human laws, and bent on promoting every kind of reform, although he

had little confidence in the reformers. By his position in society, the

generous tone of his sentiments, the seriousness of his convictions, the

attraction of an affectionate although reserved disposition, and the

charm of a refined and elegant mind, which extracted from his false

philosophy bold and original views, he held, in the projects and

preliminary deliberations of the conspiring opposition, a tolerably

important place; but he was little suited for action, and ready to

discourage it, although always prepared for personal engagement. A

chimerical but not hopeful fanaticism is not a very promising

temperament for a conspirator.

The issue of all these vain but tragical plots is well known. Dogged at

every step by authority, sometimes even persecuted by the interested

zeal of unworthy agents, they produced, in the space of two years, in

various parts of France, nineteen capital condemnations, eleven of which

were carried into effect. When we look back on these gloomy scenes, the

mind is bewildered, and the heart recoils from the spectacle of the

contrast which presents itself between sentiments and actions, efforts

and results; we contemplate enterprises at the same time serious and

harebrained, patriotic ardour joined to moral levity, enthusiastic

devotion combined with indifferent calculation, and the same blindness,

the same perseverance, united to similar impotence in old and young, in

the generals and the soldiers. On the 1st of January, 1822, M. de La

Fayette arrived in the vicinity of Befort to place himself at the head

of the insurrection in Alsace. He found the plot discovered, and several

of the leaders already in arrest; but he also met others, MM. Ary

Scheffer, Joubert, Carrel, and Guinard, whose principal anxiety was to

meet and warn him by the earliest notice, and to save him and his son

(who accompanied him) by leading them away through unfrequented roads.

Nine months later, on the 21st of September in the same year, four young

non-commissioned officers, Bories, Raoulx, Goubin, and Pommier,

condemned to death for the conspiracy of Rochelle, were on the point of

undergoing their sentence; M. de La Fayette and the head committee of

the _Carbonari_ had vainly endeavoured to effect their escape. The poor

sergeants knew they were lost, and had reason to think they were

abandoned. A humane magistrate urged them to save their lives by giving

up the authors of their fatal enterprise. All four answered, "We have

nothing to reveal," and then remained obstinately silent. Such devotion

merited more thoughtful leaders and more generous enemies.

In presence of such facts, and in the midst of the warm debates they

excited in the Chamber, the situation of the conspiring Deputies was

awkward; they neither avowed their deeds nor supported their friends.

The violence of their attacks against the Ministry and the Restoration

in general, supplied but a poor apology for this weakness. Secret

associations and plots accord ill with a system of liberty; there is

little sense or dignity in conspiring and arguing at the same time. It

was in vain that the Deputies who were not implicated endeavoured to

shield their committed and embarrassed colleagues; it was in vain that

General Foy, M. Casimir Perrier, M. Benjamin Constant, and M. Lafitte,

while protesting with vehemence against the accusations charged upon

their party, endeavoured to cast the mantle of their personal innocence

over the actual conspirators, who sat by their sides. This manoeuvre,

more blustering than formidable, deceived neither the Government nor the

public; and the conspiring Deputies lost more reputation than they

gained security, by being thus defended while they were disavowed, in

their own ranks. M. de La Fayette became impatient of this doubtful and

unworthy position. During the sitting of the 1st of August, 1822, with

reference to the debate on the budget, M. Benjamin Constant complained

of a phrase in the act of accusation drawn up by the Attorney-General of

Poictiers, against the conspiracy of General Berton, and in which the

names of five Deputies were included without their being prosecuted.

M. Lafitte sharply called upon the Chamber to order an inquiry into

transactions "which," said he, "as far as they affect myself are

infamous falsehoods." M. Casimir Perrier and General Foy supported the

motion for inquiry. The Cabinet and the right-hand party rejected it,

while defending the Attorney-General and his statements. The Chamber

appeared perplexed. M. de La Fayette demanded to be heard, and, with a

rare and happy expression of ironical pride, said, "Whatever may be my

habitual indifference to party accusations and enmities, I feel called

upon to add a few words to what has been said by my honourable friends.

Throughout the course of a career entirely devoted to the cause of

liberty, I have constantly desired to be a mark for the malevolence of

the adversaries of that cause, under whatever forms, whether despotic,

aristocratic, or monarchical, which they may please to select, to

contest or pervert it. I therefore make no complaint, although I may

claim the right of considering the word _proved_, which the

Attorney-General has thought proper to apply to me, a little free; but I

join with my friends by demanding, as far as we can, the utmost

publicity, both within the walls of this Chamber and in the face of the

entire nation. Thus I and my accusers, in whatever rank they may be

placed, can say to each other, without restraint, all that we have had

mutually to reproach ourselves with during the last thirty years."

The challenge was as transparent as it was fierce. M. de Villele felt

the full range of it, which extended even to the King himself; and

taking up the glove at once, with a moderation which in its turn was not

deficient in dignity, "The orator I follow," said he, "placed the

question on its true footing when he said, in speaking of the Chamber,

'as far as we can.' Yes, it is of the utmost importance that, on the

subject under discussion, the truth or falsehood should be correctly

known; but do we adopt the true method of ascertaining either? Such is

not my opinion; if it were, I should at once vote for the inquiry. The

proper mode of proceeding appears to me to be, to leave justice to its

ordinary course, which no one has a right to arrest.... If members of

this Chamber have been compromised in the act of accusation, do they not

find their acquittal in the very fact that the Chamber has not been

called upon to give them up to be added to the list of the accused? For,

gentlemen, it is maintaining a contradiction to say, on the one hand,

'You have placed our names in the requisition for indictment,' and on

the other, 'The minister in office has not dared to prosecute, since the

Chamber has not been required to surrender us.' And the demand has not

been made, because the nature of the process neither imposed it as a

duty nor a necessity on the part of the minister to adopt that course. I

declare openly, before France, we do not accuse you, because there was

nothing in the process which rendered it either incumbent or essential

that we should do so. And we should the more readily have fulfilled that

duty, since you cannot suppose us so little acquainted with the human

heart as not to know that there would be less danger in subjecting you

to direct prosecution than in following simply and openly the line

marked out by the ordinary course of justice."

At the close of this sitting, M. de Villele assuredly had good reason to

be satisfied with his position and himself. He had exhibited, at the

same time, firmness and moderation; by confining himself within the

ordinary resources of justice, by disclaiming prosecution to extremity,

he had exhibited the arm of power restrained, but ready to strike if

necessity should require; he had thus, to a certain extent, defied while

he tranquillized the patrons of the conspirators, and had satisfied his

own party without irritating their passions. On that day he combined the

minister with the tactician of the Chamber.

At the time of which we are speaking, M. de Villele stood in the first

and best phase of his power; he defended monarchy and order against

conspiracy and insurrection; in the Chamber of Deputies he had to repel

the furious attacks of the left-hand party, and in the Chamber of Peers

the more temperate but vigilant illwill of the friends of the

Duke de Richelieu. The danger and acrimony of the contest united his

whole party around him. Before such a situation, the rivalries and

intrigues of the Chamber and the Court hesitated to show themselves;

unreasonable expectations were held in check; fidelity and discipline

were evidently necessary; the associates of the chief could not desert,

and dared not to assail him with their importunities.

But during the course of the year 1822 the conspiracies were subdued,

the perils of the monarchy dissipated, the parliamentary combats,

although always bitter, had ceased to be questions of life and death,

and the preponderance of the right-hand party appeared to be firmly

established in the country as in the Chambers. Other difficulties and

dangers then began to rise up round M. de Villele. He had no longer

menacing enemies to hold his friends in check; disagreements, demands,

enmities, and intrigues beset him on every side. The first attacks

sprang from questions of internal policy, and originated in the bosom of

his own Cabinet.

I have no desire to pronounce severe judgment on the revolutions which

agitated Southern Europe from 1820 to 1822. It is hard to say to nations

badly governed, that they are neither wise nor strong enough to remedy

their own evils. Above all, in our days, when the desire for good

government is intense, and none believe themselves too weak to

accomplish what they wish, unrestrained truth on this subject offends

many sincere friends of justice and humanity. Experience, however, has

supplied numerous inferences. Of the three revolutions which occurred in

1820, those of Naples and Turin evaporated in a few months, without any

blow being struck, before the sole appearance of the Austrian troops.

The Spanish revolution alone survived, neither abandoned nor

established, pursuing its course by violent but uncertain steps,

incapable of founding a regular government and of suppressing the

resistance with which it was opposed, but still strong enough to keep

alive anarchy and civil war. Spain, under the influence of such

commotions, was a troublesome neighbour to France, and might become

dangerous. The conspirators, defeated at home, found shelter there, and

began to weave new plots from that place of refuge. In their turn, the

Spanish counter-revolutionists found an asylum in France, and prepared

arms on both sides of the Pyrenees. A sanatory line of troops, stationed

on our frontier to preserve France from the contagion of the

yellow-fever which had broken out in Catalonia, soon grew into an army

of observation. The hostile feeling of Europe, much more decided and

systematic, co-operated with the mistrust of France. Prince Metternich

dreaded a new fit of Spanish revolutionary contagion in Italy; the

Emperor Alexander imagined himself called upon to maintain the security

of all thrones and the peace of the world; England, without caring much

for the success of the Spanish revolution, was extremely anxious that

Spain should continue entirely independent, and that French influence

should not prevail in the Peninsula. The French Government had to deal

with a question not only delicate and weighty in itself, but abounding

with still more important complications, and which might lead to a

rupture with some, if not with the whole of her allies.

M. de Villele on succeeding to office, had no very defined ideas as to

foreign affairs, or any decidedly arranged plans beyond an unbiassed

mind and sensible predilections. During his short association with the

Cabinet of the Duke de Richelieu, he had closely observed the policy

adopted towards Spain and Italy,--a peaceful policy of non-intervention,

and of sound advice to kings and liberals, to liberals as to kings, but

of little efficacy in act, and tending, above all other considerations,

to keep France beyond the vortex of revolutions and counter-revolutions,

and to prevent a European conflagration. In the main, M. de Villele

approved of this policy, and would have desired nothing better than to

continue it. He was more occupied with internal government than external

relations, and more anxious for public prosperity than diplomatic

influence; but, in the accomplishment of his views, he had to contend

against the prepossessions of his party, and in this struggle his two

principal associates, M. de Montmorency, as Minister for Foreign

Affairs, and M. de Chateaubriand, as ambassador at London, contributed

more embarrassment than assistance.

On the formation of the Cabinet, he proposed to the King to give

M. de Montmorency the portfolio of foreign affairs. "Take care," replied

Louis XVIII. "He has a very little mind, somewhat prejudiced and

obstinate; he will betray you, against his will, through weakness. When

present, he will say he agrees with you, and may perhaps think so at the

time; when he leaves you, he will suffer himself to be led by his own

bias, contrary to your views, and, instead of being aided, you will be

thwarted and compromised." M. de Villele persevered; he believed that,

with the right-hand party, the name and influence of M. de Montmorency

were of importance. Not long after, he had an opportunity of satisfying

himself that the King had judged correctly. M. de Serre having refused

to hold office in the new Cabinet, M. de Villele, to remove him with the

semblance of a compliment, requested the King to appoint him ambassador

at Naples. M. de Montmorency, who wanted this post for his cousin the

Duke de Laval, went so far as to say that he should resign if it were

refused to him. The King and M. de Villele kept their resolution;

M. de Serre went to Naples, and M. de Montmorency remained in the

Ministry, but not without discontent at the preponderance of a colleague

who had treated him with so little complaisance.

M. de Chateaubriand, by accepting the embassy to London, relieved

M. de Villele from many little daily annoyances; but he was not long

satisfied with his new post. He wished to reign in a coterie, and to

receive adulation without constraint. He produced less effect in English

society than he had anticipated; he wanted more success and of a more

varied character; he was looked upon as a distinguished writer, rather

than as a great politician; they considered him more opinionated than

profound, and too much occupied with himself. He excited curiosity, but

not the admiration he coveted; he was not always the leading object of

attention, and enjoyed less freedom, while he called forth little of the

enthusiastic idolatry to which he had been accustomed elsewhere. London,

the English court and drawing-rooms, wearied and displeased him; he has

perpetuated the impression in his Memoirs:--"Every kind of reputation,"

he says, "travels rapidly to the banks of the Thames, and leaves them

again with the same speed. I should have worried myself to no purpose by

endeavouring to acquire any knowledge of the English. What a life is a

London season! I should prefer the galleys a hundred times."

An opportunity soon presented itself, which enabled him to seek in

another direction more worldly excitement and popularity. Revolution and

civil war went on increasing in Spain from day to day; tumults, murders,

sanguinary combats between the people and the royal guards, the troops

of the line and the militia, multiplied in the streets of Madrid. The

life of Ferdinand VII. appeared to be in question, and his liberty was

actually invaded.

M. de Metternich, whose importance and influence in Europe had greatly

increased ever since he had so correctly foreseen the weakness, and so

rapidly stifled the explosion, of the Italian revolutions, applied his

entire attention to the affairs of the Spanish Peninsula, and urged the

sovereigns and their ministers to deliberate on them in common accord.

As soon as it was settled that a Congress should assemble with this

object, at Verona, M. de Chateaubriand made powerful applications,

directly and indirectly, to M. de Montmorency and M. de Villele, to be

included in the mission. M. de Montmorency had no idea of acceding to

this, fearing to be opposed or eclipsed by such a colleague. The King,

Louis XVIII., who had no confidence either in the capacity of

M. de Montmorency or the judgment of M. de Chateaubriand, was desirous

that M. de Villele himself should repair to Verona, to maintain the

prudent policy which circumstances required. M. de Villele objected. It

would be, he said to the King, too decided an affront to his minister of

foreign affairs and his ambassador in London, who were naturally called

to this duty; it would be better to send them both, that one might

control the other, and to give them specific instructions which should

regulate their attitude and language. The King adopted this advice. The

instructions, drawn up by M. de Villele's own hand, were discussed and

settled in a solemn meeting of the Cabinet; M. de Chateaubriand knew to

a certainty that he owed the accomplishment of his desires to

M. de Villele alone; and eight days after the departure of

M. de Montmorency, the King, to secure the preponderance of

M. de Villele, by a signal mark of favour, appointed him President of

the Council.

The instructions were strictly defined; they prescribed to the French

plenipotentiaries to abstain from appearing, when before the Congress,

as reporters of the affairs of Spain, to take no initiative and enter

into engagement as regarded intervention, and, in every case, to

preserve the total independence of France, either as to act or future

resolve. But the inclinations of M. de Montmorency accorded ill with his

orders; and he had to treat with sovereigns and ministers who wished

precisely to repress the Spanish revolution by the hand of France,--in

the first place, to accomplish this work without taking it upon

themselves, and also to compromise France with England, who was

evidently much averse to French interference. The Prince de Metternich,

versed in the art of suggesting to others his own views, and of urging

with the air of co-operation, easily obtained influence over

M. de Montmorency, and induced him to take with the other Powers the

precise initiative, and to enter into the very engagements, he had been

instructed to avoid. M. de Chateaubriand, who filled only a secondary

post in the official negotiation, kept at first a little on the

reserve: "I do not much like the general position in which he has

placed himself here," wrote M. de Montmorency to Madame Recamier;[17]

"he is looked upon as singularly sullen; he assumes a stiff and uncouth

manner, which makes others feel ill at ease in his presence. I shall use

every effort, before I go, to establish a more congenial intercourse

between him and his colleagues." M. de Montmorency had no occasion to

trouble himself much to secure this result. As soon as he had taken his

departure, M. de Chateaubriand assumed a courteous and active demeanour

at the Congress. The Emperor Alexander, alive to the reputation of the

author of the 'Genius of Christianity,' and to his homage to the founder

of the 'Holy Alliance,' returned him compliment for compliment, flattery

for flattery, and confirmed him in his desire of war with the Spanish

revolution, by giving him reason to rely, for that course of policy and

for himself, upon his unlimited support. Nevertheless, in his

correspondence with M. de Villele, M. de Chateaubriand still expressed

himself very guardedly: "We left," said he, "our determination in doubt;

we did not wish to appear impracticable; we were apprehensive that, if

we discovered ourselves too much, the President of the Council would not

listen to us."

I presume that M. de Villele fell into no mistake as to the pretended

doubt in which M. de Chateaubriand endeavoured to envelop himself. I

also incline to think that he himself, at that epoch, looked upon a war

with Spain as almost inevitable. But he was still anxious to do all in

his power to avoid it, if only to preserve with the moderate spirits,

and the interests who dreaded that alternative, the attitude and

reputation of an advocate for peace. Sensible men are unwilling to

answer for the faults they consent to commit. As soon as he ascertained

that M. de Montmorency had promised at Verona that his Government would

take such steps at Madrid, in concert with the three Northern Powers, as

would infallibly lead to war, M. de Villele submitted to the King in

council these premature engagements, declaring at the same time that,

for his part, he did not feel that France was bound to adopt the same

line of conduct with Austria, Prussia, and Russia, or to recall at once,

as they wished to do, her Minister at Madrid, and thus to give up all

renewed attempts at conciliation. It was said that, while using this

language, he had his resignation already prepared and visible in his

portfolio. Powerful supporters were not wanting to this policy. The Duke

of Wellington, recently arrived in Paris, had held a conversation with

M. de Villele, and also with the King, on the dangers of an armed

intervention in Spain, and proposed a plan of mediation, to be concerted

between France and England, to induce the Spaniards to introduce into

their constitution the modifications which the French Cabinet itself

should indicate as sufficient to maintain peace. Louis XVIII. placed

confidence in the judgment and friendly feeling of the Duke of

Wellington; he closed the debate in the Council by saying, "Louis XIV.

levelled the Pyrenees; I shall not allow them to be raised again. He

placed my family on the throne of Spain; I cannot let them fall. The

other sovereigns have not the same duties to fulfil. My ambassador

ought not to quit Madrid, until the day when a hundred thousand

Frenchmen are in march to replace him." The question thus decided

against the promises he had made at Verona, M. de Montmorency, on whom a

few days before, and at the suggestion of M. de Villele, the King had

conferred the title of Duke, suddenly tendered his resignation. The

'Moniteur,' in announcing it, published a despatch which M. de Villele,

while holding _ad interim_ the portfolio of foreign affairs, addressed

to Count de Lagarde, the King's minister at Madrid, prescribing to him

an attitude and language which still admitted some chance of

conciliation; and three days later M. de Chateaubriand, after some

display of appropriate hesitation, replaced M. de Montmorency as Foreign

Minister.

Three weeks had scarcely passed over, when the Spanish Government,

controlled by a sentiment of national dignity more magnanimous than

enlightened, by popular enthusiasm, and by its own passions, refused all

constitutional modification whatever. The ambassadors of the three

Northern Powers had already quitted Madrid. The Count de Lagarde

remained there. On the refusal of the Spaniards, M. de Chateaubriand

recalled him, on the 18th of January, 1823, instructing him at the same

time, in a confidential despatch, to suggest the possibility of amicable

measures; and of this he also apprised the English Cabinet. These last

overtures proved as futile as the preceding ones. At Madrid they had no

confidence in the French Ministry; and the Government of London placed

too little dependence either on the power or discretion of that of

Madrid, to commit itself seriously by engaging the latter, through the

weight of English influence, to submit to the concessions, otherwise

reasonable, which France required. Affairs had reached the point at

which the ablest politicians, without faith in the efficacy of their own

views, were unwilling to adopt decided measures.

On the 28th of January, 1823, M. de Villele determined on war, and the

King announced this decision in his speech on opening the session of

both Chambers. Nevertheless eight days later, M. de Chateaubriand

declared to Sir Charles Stuart, the English ambassador at Paris, that,

far from dreaming of establishing absolute power in Spain, France was

still ready to entertain the constitutional modifications she had

proposed to the Spanish Government, "as sufficient to induce her to

suspend hostile preparations, and to renew friendly intercourse between

the two countries on the old footing." At the very moment of engaging in

war, M. de Chateaubriand, who desired, and M. de Villele, who was averse

to, these extreme measures, equally endeavoured to escape from the

responsibility attached to them.

I have nothing to say on the war itself and the course of its incidents.

In principle it was unjust, for it was unnecessary. The Spanish

revolution, in spite of its excesses, portended no danger to France or

the Restoration. The differences to which it gave rise between the two

Governments might have been easily arranged without violating peace. The

revolution of Paris, in February, 1848, produced much more serious and

better-founded alarms to Europe in general, than the Spanish revolution

in 1823 could have occasioned to France. Nevertheless Europe, with

sound policy, respected towards France the tutelary principle of the

internal independence of nations, which can never be justly invaded

except under an absolute and most urgent necessity. Neither do I think

that in 1823 the throne and life of Ferdinand VII. were actually in

danger. All that has since occurred in Spain justifies the conclusion,

that regicide has no accomplices there, and revolution very few

partisans. The great and legitimate reasons for war were therefore

wanting. In fact, and notwithstanding its success, it led to no

profitable result either for Spain or France. It surrendered up Spain to

the incapable and incurable tyranny of Ferdinand VII., without putting

an end to revolutions; and substituted the barbarities of popular

absolutism for popular anarchy. Instead of securing the influence of

France beyond the Pyrenees, it compromised and annulled it to such an

extent that, towards the close of 1823, it was found necessary to have

recourse to the mediation of Russia, and to send M. Pozzo di Borgo to

Madrid to compel Ferdinand VII. to select more moderate advisers. The

Northern Powers and England alone retained any credit in Spain,--the

first with the King and the Absolutists, the latter with the Liberals;

victorious France was there politically vanquished. In the eyes of

clear-sighted judges, the advantageous and permanent effects of the war

were of no more value than the causes.

As an expedient of restless policy, as a mere _coup-de-main_ of dynasty

or party, the Spanish war fully succeeded. The sinister predictions of

its opponents were falsified, and the hopes of its advocates surpassed.

Brought under proof together, the fidelity of the army and the impotence

of the conspiring refugees were clearly manifested. The expedition was

easy but not inglorious, and added much to the personal credit of the

Duke d'Angouleme. The prosperity and tranquillity of France received no

check. The House of Bourbon exhibited a strength and resolution which

the Powers who urged it on scarcely expected; and England, who would

have restrained the effort, submitted to it patiently, although with

some dissatisfaction. Regarding matters in this light only,

M. de Chateaubriand was correct in writing to M. de Villele from Verona,

"It is for you, my dear friend, to consider whether you ought not to

seize this opportunity, which may never occur again, of replacing France

in the rank of military powers, and of re-establishing the white

cockade, in a short war almost without danger, and in favour of which

the opinion of the Royalists and of the army so strongly impels you at

this moment." M. de Villele was mistaken in his answer: "May God grant,"

said he, "for my country and for Europe, that we may not persist in an

intervention which I declare beforehand, with the fullest conviction,

will compromise the safety of France herself."

After such an event, in which they had taken such unequal shares, the

relative positions of these two statesmen became sensibly changed; but

the alteration did not yet appear for some time. M. de Chateaubriand

endeavoured to triumph with modesty, and M. de Villele, not very

sensitive to the wounds of personal vanity, treated the issue of the war

as a general success of the Cabinet, and prepared to turn it to his own

advantage, without considering to whom the principal honour might be

due. Accustomed to power, he exercised it without noise or parade, and

was careful not to clash with his adversaries or rivals, who thus felt

themselves led to admit his preponderance as a necessity, rather than

humiliated to endure it as a defeat. The dissolution of the Chamber of

Deputies became his fixed idea and immediate object. The liberal

Opposition was too strong there to allow him to hope that he could carry

the great measures necessary to satisfy his party. The Spanish war had

led to debates, continually increasing in animosity, which in time

produced violence in the stronger, and anger in the weaker party, beyond

all previous example. After the expulsion of M. Manuel on the 3rd of

March, 1823, and the conduct of the principal portion of the left-hand

party, who left the hall with him when he was removed by the gendarmes,

it was almost impossible to expect that the Chamber could resume its

regular place or share in the government. On the 24th of December, 1823,

it was in fact dissolved, and M. de Villele, putting aside the

differences of opinion on the Spanish war, applied his whole attention

to ensure the success of the elections and the formation of a new

Chamber, from which he could demand with confidence what the right-hand

party expected from him, and which, according to his expectation, should

secure a long duration of his influence both with that party and with

the Court.

M. de Chateaubriand had no such objects to contemplate or effect.

Unacquainted with the internal government of the country, and the daily

management of the Chambers, he enjoyed the success of _his_ Spanish

war, as he called it, with tranquil pride,--ready, on provocation, to

become active and bitter. He wanted exactly the qualities which

distinguished M. de Villele, and he possessed those, or rather the

instinct and inclination of those, in which M. de Villele was deficient.

Entering late on public life, and until then unknown, with a mind but

slightly cultivated, and little distracted from business by the force or

variety of his imaginative ideas, M. de Villele had ever one leading

object,--to reach power by faithfully serving his party; and, power once

obtained, to hold it firmly, while exercising it with discretion.

Launched on the world almost from infancy, M. de Chateaubriand had

traversed the whole range of ideas, attempted every career, aspired to

every renown, exhausted some, and approached others; nothing satisfied

him. "My capital defect," said he himself, "has been _ennui_, disgust

with everything, perpetual doubt." A strange temperament in a man

devoted to the restoration of religion and monarchy! Thus the life of

M. de Chateaubriand had been a constant and a perpetual combat between

his enterprises and his inclinations, his situation and his nature. He

was ambitious, as the leader of a party, and independent, as a volunteer

of the forlorn hope; captivated by everything great, and sensitive even

to suffering in the most trifling matters, careless beyond measure of

the common interests of life, but passionately absorbed, on the stage of

the world, in his own person and reputation, and more annoyed by the

slightest check than gratified by the most brilliant triumph; in public

life, more jealous of success than power, capable in a particular

emergency, as he had just proved, of conceiving and carrying out a great

design, but unable to pursue in government, with energy and patience, a

well-cemented and strongly-organized line of policy. He possessed a

sympathetic understanding of the moral impressions of his age and

country; more able however, and more inclined, to win their favour by

compliance than to direct them to important and lasting advantages; a

noble and expanded mind, which, whether in literature or politics,

touched all the exalted chords of the human soul, but more calculated to

strike and charm the imagination than to govern men; greedy, to an

excess, of praise and fame, to satisfy his pride, and of emotion and

novelty, as resources from constitutional weariness.

At the very moment when he was achieving a triumph in Spain for the

House of Bourbon, he received disappointments from the latter quarter,

the remembrance of which he has thought proper to perpetuate

himself:--"In our ardour," said he, "after the arrival of the

telegraphic despatch which announced the deliverance of the King of

Spain, we Ministers hastened to the palace. There I received a warning

of my fall,--a pailful of cold water which recalled me to my usual

humility. The King and _Monsieur_ took no notice of us. The Duchess

d'Angouleme, bewildered with the glory of her husband, distinguished no

one.... On the Sunday following, before the Council met, I returned to

pay my duty to the royal family. The august Princess said something

complimentary to each of my colleagues; to me she did not deign to

address a single word: undoubtedly I had no claim to such an honour. The

silence of the Orphan of the Temple can never be considered

ungrateful." A more liberal sovereign undertook to console

M. de Chateaubriand for this royal ingratitude; the Emperor Alexander,

with whom he had continued in intimate correspondence, being anxious to

signalize his satisfaction, conferred on him and M. de Montmorency, and

on them alone, the great riband of the Order of St. Andrew.

M. de Villele was not insensible to this public token of imperial favour

bestowed on himself and his policy; and the King, Louis XVIII., showed

that he was even more moved by it. "Pozzo and La Ferronays," said he to

M. de Villele, "have made me give you, through the Emperor Alexander, a

slap on the cheek; but I shall be even with him, and mean to pay for it

in coin of a better stamp. I name you, my dear Villele, a knight of my

Orders; they are worth more than his." And M. de Villele received from

the King the Order of St. Esprit. It was in vain that a little later,

and on the mutual request of the two rivals, the Emperor Alexander

conferred on M. de Villele the Grand Cross of St. Andrew, and the King,

Louis XVIII., gave the Saint Esprit to M. de Chateaubriand; favours thus

extorted cannot efface the original disappointments.

To these courtly slights were soon added causes of rupture more serious.

The dissolution of the Chamber had succeeded far beyond the expectations

of the Cabinet. The elections had not returned from the left, or the

left centre, more than seventeen oppositionists. Much more exclusively

than that of 1815, the new Chamber belonged to the right-hand party; the

day had now arrived to give them the satisfaction they had long looked

for. The Cabinet immediately brought in two bills, which appeared to be

evident preparatives and effectual pledges for the measures most

ardently desired. By one, the integral remodelling of the Chamber of

Deputies every seven years was substituted for the partial and annual

reconstruction as at present in force. This was bestowing on the new

Chamber a guarantee of power as of durability. The second bill proposed

the conversion of the five per cent. annuities into three per cents;

that is to say, a reimbursement, to the holders of stock, of their

capital at par, or the reduction of interest. To this great financial

scheme was joined a political measure of equal importance,--indemnity to

the Emigrants, with preparations for carrying it into effect. The two

bills had been discussed and approved in council. On the question of the

septennial renewal of the Chamber of Deputies, M. de Chateaubriand

proposed the reduction of age necessary for electors; he failed in this

object, but still supported the bill. With respect to the conversion

of the funds, the friends of M. de Villele asserted that

M. de Chateaubriand warmly expressed his approbation of the measure, and

was even anxious that, by a previous arrangement with the bankers,

M. de Villele should secure the means of carrying it, as a preface to

that which was intended to heal the most festering wound of the

Revolution.

But the debate in the Chambers soon destroyed the precarious harmony of

the Cabinet. The conversion of the funds was vigorously opposed, not

only by the numerous interests thereby injured, but by the unsatisfied

feeling of the public on a new measure extremely complicated and

ill understood. In both Chambers, the greater portion of

M. de Chateaubriand's friends spoke against the bill; it was said that

he was even hostile to it himself. Some observations were attributed to

him on the imprudence of a measure which no one desired, no public

necessity called for, and was merely an invention of the bankers,

adopted by a Minister of Finance, who hoped to extract reputation from

what might lead to his ruin. "I have often seen," he was accused of

saying, "people break their heads against a wall; but I have never,

until now, seen people build a wall for the express purpose of running

their heads against it." M. de Villele listened to these reports, and

expressed his surprise at them; his supporters inquired into the cause.

Hints were uttered of jealousy, of ambition, of intrigues to depose the

President of the Council, and to occupy his place. When the bill had

passed the Chamber of Deputies, the debate in the Chamber of Peers, and

the part that M. de Chateaubriand would take in it, were looked forward

to with considerable misgivings. He maintained profound silence, not

affording the slightest support; and when the bill was thrown out,

approaching M. de Villele, he said to him, "If you resign, we are ready

to follow you." He adds, while relating this proposal himself,

"M. de Villele, for sole answer, honoured us with a look which we still

have before us. This look, however, made no impression."

It is well known how M. de Chateaubriand was dismissed two days after

the sitting. From whence proceeded the rudeness of this dismissal? It is

difficult to decide. M. de Chateaubriand attributed it to M. de Villele

alone. "On Whit Sunday, the 6th of June, 1824," says he, "at half-past

ten in the morning I repaired to the palace. My principal object was to

pay my respects to _Monsieur_. The first saloon of the Pavillon Marsan

was nearly empty; a few persons entered in succession, and seemed

embarrassed. An aide-de-camp of _Monsieur_ said to me, 'Viscount, I

scarcely hoped to see you here; have you received no communication?' I

answered, 'No; what am I likely to receive?' He replied, 'I fear you

will soon learn.' Upon this, as no one offered to introduce me to

_Monsieur_, I went to hear the music in the chapel. I was quite absorbed

in the beautiful anthems of the service, when an usher told me some one

wished to speak with me. It was Hyacinth Pilorge, my secretary. He

handed to me a letter and a royal ordinance, saying at the same time,

'Sir, you are no longer a minister.' The Duke de Rauzan, Superintendent

of Political Affairs, had opened the packet in my absence, and had not

ventured to bring it to me. I found within, this note from

M. de Villele; 'Monsieur le Vicomte,--I obey the orders of the King, in

transmitting without delay to your Excellency a decree which his Majesty

has just placed in my hand:--The Count de Villele, President of our

Ministerial Council, is charged, _ad interim_, with the portfolio of

Foreign Affairs, in place of the Viscount de Chateaubriand.'"

The friends of M. de Villele assert that it was the King himself, who in

his anger dictated the rude form of the communication. "Two days after

the vote," say they, "as soon as M. de Villele entered the royal

cabinet, Louis XVIII. said to him: 'Chateaubriand has betrayed us like

a----; I do not wish to receive him after Mass; draw up the order for

his dismissal, and let it be sent to him in time; I will not see him.'

All remonstrances were useless; the King insisted that the

decree should be written at his own desk and immediately forwarded.

M. de Chateaubriand was not found at home, and his dismissal was only

communicated to him at the Tuileries, in the apartments of _Monsieur_."

Whoever may have been the author of the measure, the blame rests with

M. de Villele. If it was contrary to his desire, assuredly he had credit

enough with the King to prevent it. Contrary to his usual habit, he

exhibited more temper on this occasion than coolness or foresight. There

are allies who are necessary, although extremely troublesome; and

M. de Chateaubriand, despite his pretensions and his whims, was less

dangerous as a rival than as an enemy.

Although without connection in the Chambers, and with no control as an

orator, he immediately became a brilliant and influential leader of the

Opposition, for opposition was his natural bent as well as the

excitement of the moment. He excelled in unravelling the instincts of

national discontent, and of continually exciting them against authority

by supplying them with powerful motives, real or specious, and always

introduced with effect. He also possessed the art of depreciating and

casting odium on his adversaries, by keen and polished insults

constantly repeated, and at the same time of bringing over to his side

old opponents, destined soon to resume their former character, but for

the moment attracted and overpowered by the pleasure and profit of the

heavy blows he administered to their common enemy. Through the favour

of the MM. Bertin, he found on the instant, in the 'Journal des Debats,'

an important avenue for his daily attacks. As enlightened and

influential in politics as in literature, these two brothers possessed

the rare faculty of collecting round themselves by generous and

sympathetic patronage, a chosen cohort of clever writers, and of

supporting their opinions and those of their friends with manly

intelligence. M. Bertin de Veaux, the more decided politician of the

two, held M. de Villele in high esteem, and lived in familiar intimacy

with him. "Villele," said he to me one day, "is really born for public

business; he has all the necessary disinterestedness and capacity; he

cares not to shine, he wishes only to govern; he would be a Minister of

Finance in the cellar of his hotel, as willingly as in the drawing-rooms

of the first story." It was no trifling matter which could induce the

eminent journalist to break with the able minister. He sought an

interview with M. de Villele, and requested him, for the preservation of

peace, to bestow on M. de Chateaubriand the embassy to Rome. "I shall

not risk such a proposition to the King," replied M. de Villele. "In

that case," retorted M. Bertin, "you will remember that the 'Debats'

overthrew the ministries of Decazes and Richelieu, and will do the same

by the ministry of Villele."--"You turned out the two first to establish

royalism," said M. de Villele; "to destroy mine you must have a

revolution."

There was nothing in this prospect to inspire M. de Villele with

confidence, as the event proved; but thirteen years later,

M. Bertin de Veaux remembered the caution. When, in 1837, under

circumstances of which I shall speak in their proper place, I separated

from M. Mole, he said to me with frankness, "I have certainly quite as

much friendship for you as I ever had for M. de Chateaubriand, but I

decline following you into Opposition. I shall not again try to sap the

Government I wish to establish. One experiment of that nature is

enough."

At Court, as in the Chamber, M. de Villele was triumphant; he had not

only conquered, but he had driven away his rivals, M. de Montmorency and

M. de Chateaubriand, as he had got rid of M. de La Fayette and

M. Manuel. Amongst the men whose voices, opinions, or even presence

might have fettered him, death had already stepped in, and was again

coming to his aid. M. Camille Jordan, the Duke de Richelieu, and

M. de Serre were dead; General Foy and the Emperor Alexander were not

long in following them. There are moments when death seems to delight,

like Tarquin, in cutting down the tallest flowers. M. de Villele

remained sole master. At this precise moment commenced the heavy

difficulties of his position, the weak points of his conduct, and his

first steps towards decline.

In place of having to defend himself against a powerful opposition of

the Left, which was equally to be feared and resisted by the Right and

the Cabinet, he found himself confronted by an Opposition emanating from

the right itself, and headed, in the Chamber of Deputies, by

M. de la Bourdonnaye, his companion during the session of 1815; in the

Chamber of Peers and without, by M. de Chateaubriand, so recently his

colleague in the Council. As long as he had M. de Chateaubriand for an

ally, M. de Villele had only encountered as adversaries, in the interior

of his party, the ultra-royalists of the extreme right,

M. de la Bourdonnaye, M. Delalot, and a few others, whom the old

counter-revolutionary spirit, intractable passions, ambitious

discontent, or habits of grumbling independence kept in a perpetual

state of irritation against a power, moderate without ascendency, and

clever without greatness. But when M. de Chateaubriand and the 'Journal

des Debats' threw themselves into the combat, there was then seen to

muster round them an army of anti-ministerialists of every origin and

character, composed of royalists and liberals, of old and young France,

of the popular and the aristocratic throng. The weak remains of the

left-hand party, beaten in the recent elections, the seventeen old

members of the Opposition, liberals or doctrinarians, drew breath when

they looked on such allies; and, without confounding their ranks, while

each party retained its own standard and arms, they combined for mutual

support, and united their forces against M. de Villele.

M. de Chateaubriand has gratified himself by inserting in his Memoirs

the testimonies of admiration and sympathy proffered to him at that time

by M. Benjamin Constant, General Sebastiani, M. Etienne, and other heads

of the liberal section. In the Parliamentary struggle, the left-hand

party could only add to the opposers of the right a very small number of

votes; but they brought eminent talents, the support of their journals,

their influence throughout the country; and, in a headlong, confused

attack,--some under cover of the mantle of Royalism, others shielded by

the popularity of their allies,--they waged fierce war against the

common enemy.

In presence of such an Opposition, M. de Villele fell into a more

formidable danger than that of the sharp contests he had to encounter to

hold ground against it: he was given over without protection or refuge

to the influence and views of his own friends. He could no longer awe

them by the power of the left-hand party, nor find occasionally in the

unsettled position of the Chamber a bulwark against their demands. There

had ceased to be a formidable balance of oppositionists or waverers; the

majority, and a great majority, was ministerial and determined to

support the Cabinet; but it had no real apprehension of the

adversaries by whom it was attacked. It preferred M. de Villele to

M. de la Bourdonnaye and M. de Chateaubriand, believing him more capable

of managing with advantage the interests of the party; but if

M. de Villele went counter to the wishes of that majority, if it ceased

to hold a perfect understanding with him, it could then fall back on

MM. de Chateaubriand and de la Bourdonnaye. M. de Villele had no

resource against the majority; he was a minister at the mercy of his

partisans.

Amongst these were some of opposite pretensions, and who lent him their

support on very unequal conditions. If he had only had to deal with

those I shall designate as the politicals and laymen of the party, he

might have been able to satisfy and govern in concert with them.

Notwithstanding their prejudices, the greater part of the

country-gentlemen and royalist citizens were neither over-zealous nor

exacting; they had fallen in with the manners of new France, and had

either found or recovered their natural position in present society,

reconciling themselves to constitutional government, since they were no

longer considered as the vanquished side. The indemnity to the

emigrants, some pledges of local influence, and the distribution of

public functions, would have long sufficed to secure their support to

M. de Villele; but another portion of his army, numerous, important, and

necessary, the religious department, was much more difficult to satisfy

and control.

I am not disposed to revive any of the particular expressions which were

then used as weapons of war, and have now become almost insulting. I

shall neither speak of the _priestly_, nor of the _congregational

party_, nor even of the _Jesuits_. I should reproach myself for reviving

by such language and reminiscences the evil, heavy in itself, which

France and the Restoration were condemned at that time, the one to fear,

and the other to endure.

This evil, which glimmered through the first Restoration, through the

session of 1815, and still exists, in spite of so many storms and such

increasing intelligence, is, in fact a war declared by a considerable

portion of the Catholic Church of France, against existing French

society, its principles, its organization, political and civil, its

origin and its tendencies. It was during the ministry of M. de Villele,

and above all when he found himself alone and confronted with his party,

that the mischief displayed its full force.

Never was a similar war more irrational or inopportune. It checked the

reaction, which had commenced under the Consulate, in favour of creeds

and the sentiment of religion. I have no desire to exaggerate the value

of that reaction; I hold faith and true piety in too much respect to

confound them with the superficial vicissitudes of human thought and

opinion. Nevertheless the movement which led France back towards

Christianity was more sincere and serious than it actually appeared to

be. It was at once a public necessity and an intellectual taste.

Society, worn out with commotion and change, sought for fixed points on

which it could rely and repose; men, disgusted with a terrestrial and

material atmosphere, aspired to ascend once more towards higher and

purer horizons; the inclinations of morality concurred with the

instincts of social interest. Left to its natural course, and supported

by the purely religious influence of a clergy entirely devoted to the

re-establishment of faith and Christian life, this movement was likely

to extend and to restore to religion its legitimate empire.

But instead of confining itself to this sphere of action, many members

and blind partisans of the Catholic clergy descended to worldly

questions, and showed themselves more zealous to recast French society

in its old mould, and so to restore their church to its former place

there, than to reform and purify the moral condition of souls. Here was

a profound mistake. The Christian Church is not like the pagan Antaeus,

who renews his strength by touching the earth; it is on the contrary, by

detaching itself from the world, and re-ascending towards heaven, that

the Church in its hours of peril regains its vigour. When we saw it

depart from its appropriate and sublime mission, to demand penal laws

and to preside over the distribution of offices; when we beheld its

desires and efforts prominently directed against the principles and

institutions which constitute today the essence of French society; when

liberty of conscience, publicity, the legal separation of civil and

religious life, the laical character of the State, appeared to be

attacked and compromised,--on that instant the rising tide of religious

reaction stopped, and yielded way to a contrary current. In place of the

movement which thinned the ranks of the unbelievers to the advantage of

the faithful, we saw the two parties unite together; the eighteenth

century appeared once more in arms; Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and

their worst disciples once more spread themselves abroad and recruited

innumerable battalions. War was declared against society in the name of

the Church, and society returned war for war:--a deplorable chaos, in

which good and evil, truth and falsehood, justice and injustice, were

confounded together, and blows hurled at random on every side.

I know not whether M. de Villele thoroughly estimated, in his own

thoughts, the full importance of this situation of affairs, and the

dangers to which he exposed religion and the Restoration. His was not a

mind either accustomed or disposed to ponder long over general facts and

moral questions, or to sound them deeply. But he thoroughly

comprehended, and felt acutely, the embarrassment which might accrue

from these causes to his own power; and he tried to diminish them by

yielding to clerical influence in the government, imposing though

limited sacrifices, flattering himself that by these means he should

acquire allies in the Church itself, who would aid him to restrain the

overweening and imprudent pretensions of their own friends. Already, and

shortly after his accession to the ministry, he had appointed an

ecclesiastic in good estimation, and whom the Pope had named Bishop of

Hermopolis, the Abbe Frayssinous, to the head-mastership of the

University. Two months after the fall of M. de Chateaubriand, the Abbe

Frayssinous entered the Cabinet as Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs

and Public Instruction--a new department created expressly for him. He

was a man of sense and moderation, who had acquired, by Christian

preaching without violence, and conduct in which prudence was blended

with dignity, a reputation and importance somewhat superior to his

actual merits, and which he had no desire to compromise. In 1816 he had

been a member of the Royal Commission of Public Education, over which

M. Royer-Collard at that time presided; but soon retired from it, not

wishing either to share the responsibility of his superior or to act in

opposition to him. He generally approved of the policy of M. de Villele;

but although binding himself to support it, and while lamenting the

blind demands of a portion of the clergy, he endeavoured, when

opportunity offered, to excuse and conceal rather than reject them

altogether. Without betraying M. de Villele, he afforded him little aid,

and committed him repeatedly by his language in public, which invariably

tended more to maintain his own position in the Church than to serve the

Cabinet.

Three months only had elapsed since M. de Villele, separated from his

most brilliant colleagues and an important portion of his old friends,

had sustained the entire weight of government, when the King Louis

XVIII. died. The event had long been foreseen, and M. de Villele had

skilfully prepared for it: he was as well established in the esteem and

confidence of the new monarch as of the sovereign who had just passed

from the Tuileries to St. Denis; Charles X., the Dauphin, and the

Dauphiness, all three looked upon him as the ablest and most valuable of

their devoted adherents. But M. de Villele soon discovered that he had

changed masters, and that little dependence could be placed on the mind

or heart of a king, even though sincere, when the surface and the

interior were not in unison. Men belong, much more than is generally

supposed, or than they believe themselves, to their real convictions.

Many comparisons, for the sake of contrast, have been drawn between

Louis XVIII. and Charles X.; the distinction between them was even

greater than has been stated. Louis XVIII. was a moderate of the old

system, and a liberal-minded inheritor of the eighteenth century;

Charles X. was a true emigrant and a submissive bigot. The wisdom of

Louis XVIII. was egotistic and sceptical, but serious and sincere; when

Charles X. acted like a sensible king, it was through propriety, from

timid and short-sighted complaisance, from being carried away, or from

the desire of pleasing,--not from conviction or natural choice. Through

all the different Cabinets of his reign, whether under the

Abbe de Montesquiou, M. de Talleyrand, the Duke de Richelieu,

M. Decazes, and M. de Villele, the government of Louis XVIII. was ever

consistent with itself; without false calculation or premeditated

deceit, Charles X. wavered from contradiction to contradiction, from

inconsistency to inconsistency, until the day when, given up to his own

will and belief, he committed the error which cost him his throne.

During three years, from the accession of Charles X. to his own fall,

M. de Villele not only made no stand against the inconsiderate

fickleness of the King, but even profited by it to strengthen himself

against his various enemies. Too clear-sighted to hope that Charles X.

would persevere in the voluntary course of premeditated and steady

moderation which Louis XVIII. had followed, he undertook to make him at

least pursue, when circumstances allowed, a line of policy sufficiently

temperate and popular to save him from the appearance of being

exclusively in the hands of the party to whom in fact his heart and

faith were devoted. Skilful in varying his advice according to the

necessities and chances of the moment, and aptly availing himself of the

inclination of Charles X. for sudden measures, whether lenient or

severe, M. de Villele at one time abolished, and at another revived, the

censorship of the journals, occasionally softened or aggravated the

execution of the laws, always endeavouring, and frequently with success,

to place in the mouth or in the name of the King, liberal demonstrations

and effusions, by the side of words and tendencies which recalled the

old system and the pretensions of absolute power. The same spirit

governed him in the Chambers. His bills were so conceived and presented,

as we may say, to the address of the different parties, that all

influential opinions were conciliated to a certain extent. The

indemnity to the emigrants satisfied the wishes and restored the

position of the entire lay party of the right. The recognition of the

Republic of Hayti pleased the Liberals. Judicious reforms in the

national budget and an administration friendly to sound regulations and

actual services, obtained for M. de Villele the esteem of enlightened

men and the general approbation of all public functionaries. The bill on

the system of inheritance and the right of primogeniture afforded hope

to those who were prepossessed with aristocratic regrets. The bill on

sacrilege fostered the passions of the fanatics, and the views of their

theorists. Parallel with the spirit of reaction which predominated in

these legislative deliberations, as in the enactments of power, an

intelligent effort was ever visible to contrive something to the

advantage of the spirit of progress. While faithfully serving his

friends, M. de Villele sought for and availed himself of every

opportunity that offered of making some compensation to his adversaries.

It was not that the state of his mind was changed in principle, or that

he had identified himself with the new and liberally-disposed society

which he courted with so much solicitude. After all, M. de Villele

continued ever to be a follower of the old system, true to his party

from feeling as well as on calculation. But his ideas on the subject of

social and political organization were derived from tradition and habit,

rather than from personal and well-meditated conviction. He preserved,

without making them his sole rule of conduct, and laid them aside

occasionally, without renunciation. A strong practical instinct, and

the necessity of success, were his leading characteristics; he had the

peculiar tact of knowing what would succeed and what would not, and

paused in face of obstacles, either judging them to be insurmountable,

or to demand too much time for removal. I find, in a letter which he

wrote on the 31st of October, 1824, to Prince Julius de Polignac, at

that time ambassador in London, on the projected re-establishment of the

law of primogeniture, the strong expression of his inward thought, and

of his clear-sighted prudence in an important act. "You would be wrong

to suppose," said he, "that it is because entailed titles and estates

are perpetual, we do not create any. You give us too much credit; the

present generation sets no value on considerations so far removed from

their own time. The late King named Count K---- a peer, on the proviso

of his investing an estate with the title; he gave up the peerage,

rather than injure his daughter to the advantage of his son. Out of

twenty affluent families, there is scarcely one inclined to place the

eldest son so much above the rest. Egotism prevails everywhere. People

prefer to live on good terms with all their children, and, when

establishing them in the world, to show no preference. The bonds of

subordination are so universally relaxed, that parents, I believe, are

obliged to humour their own offspring. If the Government were to propose

the re-establishment of the law of primogeniture, it would not have a

majority on that question; the difficulty is more deeply seated; it lies

in our habits, still entirely impressed with the consequences of the

Revolution. I do not wish to say that nothing can be done to ameliorate

this lamentable position; but I feel that, in a state of society so

diseased, we require time and management, not to lose in a day the

labour and fruit of many years. To know how to proceed, and never to

swerve from that path, to make a step towards the desired end whenever

it can be made, and never to incur the necessity of retreat,--this

course appears to me to be one of the necessities of the time in which I

have arrived at power, and one of the causes which have led me to the

post I occupy."

M. de Villele spoke truly; it was his rational loyalty to the interests

of his party, his patient perseverance in marching step by step to his

object, his calm and correct distinction between the possible and

impossible, which had made and kept him minister. But in the great

transformations of human society, when the ideas and passions of nations

have been powerfully stirred up, good sense, moderation, and cleverness

will not long suffice to control them; and the day will soon return

when, either to promote good or restrain evil, defined convictions and

intentions, strongly and openly expressed, are indispensable to the

heads of government. M. de Villele was not endowed with these qualities.

His mind was accurate, rather than expanded; he had more ingenuity than

vigour, and he yielded to his party when he could no longer direct it.

"I am born for the end of revolutions," he exclaimed when arriving at

power, and he judged himself well; but he estimated less correctly the

general state of society: the Revolution was much further from its end

than he believed; it was continually reviving round him, excited and

strengthened by the alternately proclaimed and concealed attempts of

the counter-principle. People had ceased to conspire; but they

discussed, criticized, and contended with undiminished ardour in the

legitimate field. There were no longer secret associations, but opinions

which fermented and exploded on every side. And, in this public

movement, impassioned resistance was chiefly directed against the

preponderance and pretensions of the fanatically religious party. One of

the most extraordinary infatuations of our days has been the blindness

of this party to the fact that the conditions under which they acted,

and the means they employed, were directly opposed to the end in view,

and leading from rather than conducting to it. They desired to restrain

liberty, to control reason, to impose faith; they talked, wrote, and

argued; they sought and found arms in the system of inquiry and

publicity which they denounced. Nothing could be more natural or

legitimate on the part of believers who have full confidence in their

creed, and consider it equal to the conversion of its adversaries. The

latter are justified in recurring to the discussion and publicity which

they expect to serve their cause. But those who consider publicity and

free discussion as essentially mischievous, by appealing to these

resources, foment themselves the movement they dread, and feed the fire

they wish to extinguish. To prove themselves not only consistent, but

wise and effective, they should obtain by other means the strength on

which they rely: they should gain the mastery; and then, when they have

silenced all opposition, let them speak alone, if they still feel the

necessity of speaking. But until they have arrived at this point, let

them not deceive themselves; by adopting the weapons of liberty, they

serve liberty much more than they injure it, for they warn and place it

on its guard. To secure victory to the system of order and government to

which they aspire, there is but one road;--the Inquisition and Philip

II. were alone acquainted with their trade.

As might naturally be expected, the resistance provoked by the attempts

of the fanatical party soon transformed itself into an attack. One

royalist gentleman raised the flag of opposition against the policy of

M. de Villele; another assailed the religious controllers of his

Cabinet, and not only dragged them before public opinion, but before the

justice of the country, which disarmed and condemned them, without

inflicting any other sentence than that of its disapprobation in the

name of the law.

No one was less a philosopher of the eighteenth century, or a liberal of

the nineteenth, than the Count de Montlosier. In the Constituent

Assembly he had vehemently defended the Church and resisted the

Revolution; he was sincerely a royalist, an aristocrat, and a Catholic.

People called him, not without reason, the feudal publicist. But,

neither the ancient nobility nor the modern citizens were disposed to

submit to ecclesiastical dominion. M. de Montlosier repulsed it, equally

in the name of old and new France, as he would formerly have denied its

supremacy from the battlements of his castle, or in the court of Philip

the Handsome. The early French spirit re-appeared in him, free, while

respectful towards the Church, and as jealous of the laical independence

of the State and crown, as it was possible for a member of the Imperial

State Council to show himself.

At the same moment, a man of the people, born a poet and rendered still

more poetical by art, celebrated, excited, and expanded, through his

songs, popular instincts and passions in opposition to everything that

recalled the old system, and above all against the pretensions and

supremacy of the Church. M. Beranger, in his heart, was neither a

revolutionist nor an unbeliever; he was morally more honest, and

politically more rational, than his songs; but, a democrat by conviction

as well as inclination, and carried away into license and want of

forethought by the spirit of democracy, he attacked indiscriminately

everything that was ungracious to the people, troubling himself little

as to the range of his blows, looking upon the success of his songs as a

victory achieved by liberty, and forgetting that religious faith and

respect for things holy are nowhere more necessary than in the bosom of

democratic and liberal associations. I believe he discovered this a

little too late, when he found himself individually confronted by the

passions which his ballads had fomented, and the dreams he had

transformed to realities. He then hastened, with sound sense and

dignity, to escape from the political arena, and almost from the world,

unchanged in his sentiments, but somewhat regretful and uneasy for the

consequences of the war in which he had taken such a prominent part.

Under the Restoration, he was full of confidence and zeal, enjoying his

popularity with modesty, and more seriously hostile and influential than

any sonneteer had ever been before him.

Thus, after six years of government by the right-hand party, and three

of the reign of Charles X., matters had arrived at this point--that two

of the chief royalist leaders marched at the head of an opposition, one

against the Cabinet, and the other against the Clergy, both becoming

from day to day more vigorous and extended, and that the Restoration

enumerated a ballad-maker in the first rank of its most dangerous

enemies.

This entire mischief and danger was universally attributed to

M. de Villele; on the right or on the left, in the saloons and the

journals, amongst the Moderates and the extreme Radicals, he became more

and more an object of attack and reproach. As the judicial bodies had

acted in affairs which regarded religion, so the literary institutions,

on questions which concerned their competence, eagerly seized the

opportunity of manifesting their opposition. The University, compressed

and mutilated, was in a state of utter discontent. The French Academy

made it a duty of honour to protest, in an address which the King

refused to receive, but which was nevertheless voted, against the new

bill on the subject of the press, introduced to the Chamber in 1826, and

withdrawn by the Cabinet three months afterwards. In his own Chamber of

Peers, M. de Villele found neither general goodwill nor a certain

majority. Even at the Palais Bourbon and the Tuileries, his two

strongholds, he visibly lost ground; in the Chamber of Deputies, the

ministerial majority declined, and became sad even in triumph; at the

court, several of the King's most trusty adherents, the

Dukes de Riviere, de Fitz-James, and de Maille, the Count de Glanderes,

and many others,--some through party spirit, and some from monarchical

uneasiness,--desired the fall of M. de Villele, and were already

preparing his successors. Even the King himself, when any fresh

manifestation of public feeling reached him, exclaimed pettishly, on

entering his closet, "Always Villele! always against Villele!"

In truth, the injustice was shameful. If the right-hand party had held

office for six years, and had used power so as to maintain it, if

Charles X. had not only peaceably succeeded Louis XVIII., but had ruled

without trouble, and even with some increase of popularity, it was to

M. de Villele, above all others, that they were indebted for these

advantages. He had accomplished two difficult achievements, which might

have been called great had they been more durable: he had disciplined

the old royalist party, and from a section of the court, and a class

which had never been really active except in revolutionary contests, he

had established during six years a steady ministerial support; he had

restrained his party and his power within the general limits of the

Charter, and had exercised constitutional government for six years under

a prince and with friends who were generally considered to understand it

little, and to adopt it with reluctance. If the King and the right-hand

party felt themselves in danger, it was themselves, and not

M. de Villele, whom they ought to have accused.

Nevertheless M. de Villele, on his part, had no right to complain of the

injustice to which he was exposed. For six years he had been the head of

the Government; by yielding to the King and his partisans when he

disapproved their intentions, and by continuing their minister when he

could no longer prevent what he condemned, he had admitted the

responsibility of the faults committed under his name and with his

sanction, although in spite of himself. He endured the penalty of his

weakness in the exercise of power, and of his obstinacy in retaining it

under whatever sacrifices it might cost him. We cannot govern under a

free system, to enjoy the merit and reap the fruit of success, while we

repudiate the errors which lead to reverse.

Justice to M. de Villele requires the acknowledgment that he never

attempted to withdraw himself from the responsibility of his government,

whether as regarded his own acts or his concessions to his friends. He

was never seen to reproach the King or his party with the errors to

which he became accessory. He knew how to preserve silence and endure

the blame, even while he had the power of justification. In 1825, after

the Spanish war, and during the financial debates to which it had given

rise, M. de la Bourdonnaye accused him of having been the author of the

contracts entered into in 1823, with M. Ouvrard, at Bayonne, for

supplying the army, and which had been made the subject of violent

attacks. M. de Villele might have closed his adversary's mouth; for on

the 7th of April, 1823, he had written to the Duke d'Angouleme expressly

to caution him against M. Ouvrard and his propositions. He took no

advantage of this, but contented himself with explaining to the King in

a Council, when the Dauphin was present, the situation in which he was

placed.

The Dauphin at once authorized him to make use of his letter. "No,

Monseigneur," replied M. de Villele; "let anything happen to me that

Heaven pleases, it will be of little consequence to the country; but I

should be guilty towards the King and to France, if, to exculpate myself

from an accusation, however serious it may be, I should give utterance,

beyond the walls of this cabinet, to a single word which could

compromise the name of your Royal Highness."

When, notwithstanding his obstinate and confiding disposition, he saw

himself seriously menaced, when the cries of "Down with the Ministers!

Down with Villele!" uttered by several battalions of the National Guard,

both before and after the review by the King in the Champ-de-Mars on the

29th of April, 1827, had led to their disbanding, and had equally

excited the public and disturbed the King himself,--when M. de Villele

felt distinctly that, both in the Chambers and at the Court, he was too

much attacked and shaken to govern with efficiency, he resolutely

adopted the course prescribed by the Charter and called for by his

position; he demanded of the King the dissolution of the Chamber of

Deputies, and a new general election, which should either re-establish

or finally overthrow the Cabinet.

Charles X. hesitated; he dreaded the elections, and, although not

disposed to support his Minister with more firmness, the chance of his

fall, and doubt in the selection of his successors, disturbed him, as

much as it was possible for his unreflecting nature to be disturbed.

M. de Villele persisted, the King yielded, and, in defiance of the

electoral law which, in 1820, M. de Villele and the right-hand party had

enacted, in spite of their six years of power, in spite of all the

efforts of Government to influence the elections, they produced a result

in conformity with the state of general feeling,--a majority composed of

different elements, but decidedly hostile to the Cabinet. After having

carefully examined this new ground, and after having received from

various quarters propositions of accommodation and alliance,

M. de Villele, having clearly estimated his chances of strength and

durability, retired from office, and recommended the King to return

towards the centre, and to call together a moderate Ministry, which he

assisted him to construct. Charles X. received his new councillors as he

quitted his old ones, with sadness and apprehension, not acting as he

wished, and scarcely knowing whether what he did would tend to his

advantage. More decided, not through superiority of mind, but by natural

courage, the Dauphiness said to him, when she ascertained his

resolution, "In abandoning M. de Villele, you have descended the first

step of your throne."

The political party of which M. de Villele was the head, and which had

its own peculiar destinies, with which those of royalty had never been

closely allied, might indulge in more gloomy anticipations on their own

account; they had employed and lost the only man, belonging to their own

ranks, who was capable of showing them legitimately how to acquire and

how to exercise power.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 17: On the 17th October, and the 22nd of November, 1822.]